Let's go Viking! This summer there will be an international exchange onboard the sailing ship the Vega Gamleby. 36 participants from Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Norway will get together on this beautiful Swedish ship. They will set sail from Harlingen (the Netherlands) to Kungshamn (Sweden) , via Frederikstad (Norway). This is a beautiful route where the vikings in the early days also set their sails to explore new places and meet new people. Sail Training (one of the activities in the exchange) teaches us the ancient, traditional knowledge of sailing. The participants will be involved in all aspect of operating the vessel, from setting the sails, steering, being on the lookout, navigating and housekeeping. The tasks are challenging and all participants will cross personal boundaries and being all together in this new, challenging environment enables the participants to develop themselves in a lot of different ways. It is also an excellent surrounding for our theme and learn about each others cultural differences and similarities. The real life task (compared to e.g. games in a hostel) enables the participant not only to talk about cultural and personal differences, but also to experience it in everything happening on board. We will live in close quarters and for all tasks a team is needed. Living in close quarters can be very challenging, how much personal space (= freedom) do you need, does another person needs? How do you respect the differences in need within the group and still make it work as a team? Operating a vessel is teamwork: we will sail for more then 24 hours, the crew and participants will be split up in three watches. Each watch will be responsible for sailing the vessel 8 hours per day (divided in two times 4 hours; e.g. 8-12, 12-4, 4-8). The watches will consist of 12 participants, 2 from each nationality. They will become a close knit team, depending on each other for safety and survival. Whilst sailing they can practice leadership, communication skills and do that in a cultural diverse surrounding, meaning taking the different needs personally and culturally into account. On top of this sail training activity the participants have build a whole set of additional activities to explore the theme exploration and freedom and work methods to enhance the learning process. These activities vary from debates about democratic values connected with freedom, freedom to chose who you are (or are we made by society), looking into the maritime history of the countries and connecting that to the development of our societies. Within the work methods, reflection on your learning process in very important. Short evaluations each day after the watches, makes sure everybody is aware of their process, the group process and it ensures negativity is never long in the group. Our goal is to create teamwork. The point of this exchange is that the participants will listen to and respect each other in order to create an excellent team. These "Vikings" are going to have a life changing experience!